Part 21 (2/2)

”You'll need to abjure strong drink,” said Sakr-el-Bahr

”There be coh

Sakr-el-Bahr considered The rogue's appeal sood to have a h it were but such a rascal as this

”Be it as you will,” he said at last ”You deserve to be hanged in spite of what promises I made you But no matter for that So that you become a Muslim I will take you to serve besideas you are loyal to n of faithlessness, a rope and the yard-arm, my friend, and an airy dance into hell for you”

The rascally skipper stooped in his eht up Sakr-el-Bahr's hand and bore it to his lips ”It is agreed,” he said ”Ye have shown me mercy who have little deserved it fros to you, and worthless thing though it may be, ye may do with it as ye please”

Despite hiue's hand, and Jasper shuffled off and down the coh villainous life by a clemency that he knew to be undeserved, but which he swore should be deserved ere all was done

CHAPTER VII MARZAK-BEN-ASAD

It took no less than forty caosy from the mole to the Kasbah, and the procession--carefully eants to impress the mob--was such as never yet had been seen in the narrow streets of Algiers upon the return of any corsair It was full worthy of the greatest Muslim conqueror that sailed the seas, of one who, not content to keep to the tideless Mediterranean as had hitherto been the rule of his kind, had ventured forth upon the wider ocean

Ahead marched a hundred of his rovers in their short caftans of every conceivable colour, their waists swathed in gaudy scarves, some of which supported a very arsenal of assorted cutlery;spike of a casque thrust up above their turbans

After them, dejected and in chains, caed along by the whips of the corsairs who flanked thei line of stately, sneering ca Saharowis After them followed yet more corsairs, and then mounted, on a white Arab jennet, his head swathed in a turban of cloth of gold, came Sakr-el-Bahr In the narrower streets, with their white and yelloashed houses, which presented blank less walls broken here and there by no ht and air, the spectators huddled the crushed to death by the ca on either side entirely filled those narroays But the more open spaces, such as the strand on either side of the mole, the square before the sok, and the approaches of Asad's fortress, were thronged with arobes cheek by joith half-naked blacks fro Arabs in their spotless white djellabas rubbed shoulders with Berbers frohlands in black caees froarments, tolerated there because bound to the Moor by ties of co and common exile frolaring African sun this a crowd stood assembled to welcome Sakr-el-Bahr; and welcome him it did, with such vocal thunder that an echo of it from the mole reached the very Kasbah on the hilltop to herald his approach

By the time, however, that he reached the fortress his procession had dwindled by more than half At the sok his forces had divided, and his corsairs, headed by Othnio--or banyard, as my Lord Henry calls it--whilst the caateway of the Kasbah they padded into the vast courtyard to be ranged along two sides of it by their Saharowi drivers, and there brought clumsily to their knees After theuard of honour to their leader They took their stand upon either side of the gateway after profoundly salaa enthroned upon a divan, attended by his wazeer Tsauarded by a half-dozen janissaries, whose sable garold of his jewelled robes In his white turban glowed an emerald crescent

The Basha's countenance was dark and brooding as he watched the advent of that line of burdened ca with the doubt of Sakr-el-Bahr which Fenzileh's crafty speech and craftier reticence had planted in theht of the corsair leader himself his countenance cleared suddenly, his eyes sparkled, and he rose to his feet to welcoh perils on a service dear to both

Sakr-el-Bahr entered the courtyard on foot, having dish and his forked beard thrusting forward, he stalked with great dignity to the foot of the divan followed by Ali and a any-faced fellow, turbaned and red-bearded, in whonize the rascally Jasper Leigh, now in all the panoply of your coado

Sakr-el-Bahr went down upon his knees and prostrated hi of Allah and His peace upon thee,to lift that splendid figure in his ar Fenzileh to clench her teeth behind the fretted lattice that concealed her

”The praise to Allah and to our Lord Mahomet that thou art returned and in health, laddened by the news of thy victories in the service of the Faith”

Then followed the display of all those riches wrested froh Asad's expectations had been fed already by Othht now spread before his eyes by far exceeded all those expectations

In the end all was diso cast up the account of it and mark the share that fell to the portion of those concerned--for in these ventures all were partners, from the Basha himself, who represented the State down to the meanest corsair who had manned the victorious vessels of the Faith, and each had his share of the booty, greater or less according to his rank, one twentieth of the total falling to Sakr-el-Bahr himself

In the courtyard were left none but Asad, Marzak and the janissaries, and Sakr-el-Bahr with Ali and Jasper It was then that Sakr-el-Bahr presented his new officer to the Bashal as one upon whohter and a skilled seaman, who had offered up his talents and his life to the service of Islam, who had been accepted by Sakr-el-Bahr, and stood now before Asad to be confirmed in his office

Marzak interposed petulantly, to exclais in the ranks of the soldiers of the Faith, and that it was unwise to increase their number and presumptuous in Sakr-el-Bahr to take so much upon himself

Sakr-el-Bahr measured him with an eye in which scorn and surprise were nicely blended